FOCUS DC News Wire 9/20/13

 

 

As D.C. students begin a new school year, there are more choices than ever before — thanks to D.C.’s public charter schools. Last year some 43 percent of all D.C. public school students were educated at charters, which are publicly funded but operate independently of the city’s traditional public school system. Four new charters have also opened this year — Somerset Preparatory Academy, Ingenuity Prep, Sela and Community College Preparatory Academy.

 

Public charter schools are tuition-free, publicly funded schools that are free to determine their own school culture and curriculum while being held accountable by the city’s Public Charter School Board for improved student performance. So popular are these public school options that charters received 22,000 more applications than their available spaces last year. Some D.C. charters are now statistically harder to get into — they must hold a lottery if they are over-subscribed — than Ivy League schools. 

 

The high demand for these unique programs is a function of the superior public education they offer. For example, District public charter schools’ on-time highschool graduation rate is 21 percentage points higher than that of the city’s public high schools. And in recent standardized tests, charter students — especially those from the city’s most disadvantaged communities — outscored their traditional public school peers.

 

In wards 7 and 8, which are located east of the Anacostia River and have the District’s highest rates of poverty, unemployment and crime, students at charters significantly outperform their school system peers on standardized reading and math tests. In math, charter schools average 31 percentage points higher in Ward 8 and 19 percentage points higher in Ward 7. In reading, charter schools average 21 points higher in Ward 8 and 17 points higher in Ward 7.

 

In fact, students at D.C.’s charters outscore their D.C. Public Schools peers in every ward except the District’s affluent Ward 3, where there are no charter schools — as charters choose to locate in the most disadvantaged and underserved neighborhoods. In a new ranking system by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education, public charters have 19 “rising” or “reward” schools — the highest classifications — in wards 7 and 8; D.C. Public Schools has only three.

 

Charters’ superior results have occurred in part because of market forces — parents must choose charters for their children, and if they don’t, charters don’t get paid. This operates as a strong incentive for charter school leaders to make sure their schools offer a good education. Another incentive is that charters can be closed for underperforming academically or mismanaging public funds. (About one-third of those opened have been closed.) 

 

Charters’ success was a critical component of the 2007 decision by the D.C. Council to take control of the school system out of the hands of the old Board of Education and institute mayoral control, which led to the appointment of two reforming chancellors — Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson. The result has been a five-year improvement in math and reading test scores in the school system, although performance still lags far behind that of the city’s charters.

 

Remarkably, charters have transformed public education while successive mayoral administrations have consistently flouted the charter law, disproportionately allocating city funds to the less-well-performing cityrun school system. Charter students, on average, receive less in school operating funds than their peers in cityrun schools each year. In the current fiscal year this underfunding amounts to $1,700 per student. The disparity in capital funding is even greater: $10,000 per school-system student compared to just $3,000 per charter school student.

 

This unfair funding, which is illegal under the legislation that established charter schools in the city, discriminates against those who are least well served by the traditional system. Charters serve higher shares of minority students and those receiving federal lunch subsidies. Just imagine what they could accomplish with access to the same resources as provided to the city-run schools.

 

 

 

Last week the Mayor appointed Jesús Aguirre, the current director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, to the position of state superintendent of education. Aguirre does have a background in education, but will it be enough to positively affect education policy in the district?

 

Aguirre has worked as a science teacher in Los Angeles, a charter school operator in Arizona, and most recently as the Director of School Operations for DCPS.

 

Like many others in DC's school reform movement, Aguirre began his educational career as a member of Teach for America. In 1995, Aguirre and his wife, Monica Liang-Aguirre, founded and began operating Tertulia Pre-College Community, one of the first charter schools in Phoenix, AZ. (Liang-Aguirre now serves as the principal of Oyster Adams Elementary School in Ward 3.).

 

The school served low-income, largely Hispanic students at two campuses: an elementary school serving kindergarten through 5th grade, and a middle school serving 6th through 8th grades.

 

In 2006, Aguirre and his wife relocated to the East Coast for personal reasons. "Although we were still technically on the board of directors and the charter holders," Aguirre said in an email, "we regrettably were not involved in the day-to-day management of the school and were not able to truly support the school's new leader."

 

Testing data for the school is available going back to 2007. The schools struggled, and test scores apparently fluctuated wildly after 2009. When the school's 15-year charter expired in 2010, the Arizona charter school board declined to renew it, citing poor academic progress, failure to timely submit financial audits, and failure to comply with monitoring and reporting requirements for federal money. At the time, Aguirre was president of the board of the school, which closed in 2011.

 

Reasons for the school's decline

 

Aguirre attributes the school's decline to a number of factors. In addition to his move to the East Coast, he cites an increasingly hostile environment towards bilingual education, which, he says, "deprived our students of much-needed language support." He also says that antipathy towards immigrants in Phoenix led many of the school's families to return to Mexico, causing a drop in enrollment that led to financial instability.

 

While Tertulia was sometimes late in submitting state-required audits and reports during Aguirre's tenure there, he says that the audits were always clean, and the school was in compliance with all state and federal requirements.

 

Aguirre also notes that, although the school struggled to meet the progress deadlines set by the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, it was often "labeled as performing or higher" by the state while he was there. He points to the hundreds of students who he says were successfully educated at the school.

 

From 2007 until 2009, Aguirre served as the Director of School Operations for DCPS under former Chancellor Michelle Rhee. He was tasked with ensuring that day-to-day school functions ran smoothly, and he says his experience running a charter school impressed upon him the importance of freeing principals from such concerns so that they can focus on instruction.

 

In 2009, Aguirre was tapped to run the DC Department of Parks and Recreation. His appointment as state superintendent of education last week came after what Mayor Vincent Gray described as a nationwide search. His nomination now moves to the DC Council for approval. It's not clear when the Council will vote, but Gray has said Aguirre will assume the position on October 1st.

 

Role of the state superintendent of education

 

The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) plays the same role in DC that a department of education does in a state. The state superintendent of education reports directly to the mayor and is tasked with ensuring DC residents have access to a quality education. This means that the superintendent:

 

 

If recent history is any indication, ensuring testing integrity will be an important and highly visible part of the next superintendent's job. Cheating scandals going back to 2008 have caused controversy and thrown the validity of some test results into doubt.

 

OSSE is not the only agency with authority over education policy in the district. The Deputy Mayor of Education, Abigail Smith (who also served under Rhee), is tasked with overseeing a District-wide education strategy, managing interagency coordination, and providing oversight and support for all education-related agencies. DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson oversees the traditional public school system, and the Public Charter School Board has jurisdiction over the growing charter sector. OSSE's oversight responsibilities straddle both sectors, as well as that of adult education.

 

Some have urged that the state superintendent should have more independence from the mayor. One of the education bills that Councilmember David Catania has introduced would achieve that result by making the superintendent dismissible only for cause and only after a vote by the Board of Education.

 

Both the Post and Examiner have reported on Aguirre's appointment, with the Examiner's Mark Lerner calling him an "extremely professional and reasonable individual." Neither article mentions the fate of Aguirre's former charter school.

 

Given Aguirre's background, it's difficult to predict how his tenure as DC's superintendent will turn out. He does have experience running a charter school as well as overseeing DCPS school operations, which he claims will give him a "unique perspective" as state superintendent. But without more documentation about the charter school's history and the circumstances surrounding its closure, it's not clear whether that experience will serve him well.

 

The school may have performed adequately while he was operating it, but as a board member and president he still bears some responsibility for its subsequent difficulties. On the other hand, he must have come away from that experience having learned a significant amount about what charters need to succeed.

 

Even assuming that's the case, OSSE's problems are larger than those of a single charter school. It's an agency with a history of high turnover, not just in leadership, but also among the staff. That can cripple an organization no matter how capable the leadership. If Aguirre would like to make an impact in his role as superintendent, he would do well to focus on reducing turnover at OSSE, securing testing integrity, and using the agency's resources to effect positive changes for students.

 

 

California is on a collision course with the U.S. Department of Education over its plans to suspend standardized tests this school year – a move that Education Secretary Arne Duncan says is wrong-headed.

 

Concerned that other states might follow suit and in an attempt to shut down California’s rebellion, Duncan is threatening to withhold a small portion of the $1.4 billion California receives annually from Washington to help educate poor students in the country’s most populous state.

 

Like 44 other states and the District of Columbia, California has adopted the new Common Core academic standards in math and reading, and its teachers are using new curricula and materials for grades K-12 this school year.

 

Federal law requires states to test students in math and reading in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school. That requirement, a cornerstone of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law, is designed to allow parents, regulators and the public to track student performance and hold schools accountable.

 

But exams based on the new Common Core standards are still being crafted and won’t be ready until next school year, leaving states in a quandary: If they are teaching new material, and new tests aren’t ready, do they use the old tests?

 

California lawmakers said no, and voted Sept. 10 to end funding for standardized testing for at least this school year. Instead, students can take practice versions of the new Common Core exams which are being “field-tested” around the country this year. Scores would be not be shared with students, parents or schools because the new tests are being administered on a trial basis.

 

Gov. Jerry Brown (D) intends to sign the legislation, a spokesman said.

 

“I feel that a test based on a different curriculum does not make a lot of sense,” Brown told reporters Monday.

 

Tom Torlakson, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement that officials are “guided by what’s right for California’s children. ... Our goals for 21st century learning, and the road ahead, are clear. We won’t reach them by continuing to look in the rear-view mirror with outdated tests, no matter how it sits with officials in Washington.”

 

Duncan and others acknowledge that using old tests is not ideal but that they still afford some measure of accountability.

 

“... Letting an entire school year pass for millions of students without sharing information on their schools’ performance with them and their families is the wrong way to go about this transition,” Duncan said in a statement. “No one wants to over-test, but if you are going to support all students’ achievement, you need to know how all students are doing.”

 

Duncan is backed by Rep. George Miller of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and an author of No Child Left Behind, as well as several advocacy groups including Education Trust-West, StudentsFirst and Democrats for Education Reform.

 

Thomas Kane, a director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard, said California’s plan to give students field tests but withhold scores is like practicing basketball in the dark. “If you’re going to take a practice shot, it helps to know if the ball goes in the hoop,” Kane said. “If it does not provide results back, California is asking teachers and students to take practice shots in the dark.”

 

While some governors are having second thoughts about the adoption of the Common Core in the face of political pressure and new costs, Brown has been a steady booster, allocating $1 billion to help teachers and schools enact the new standards.

 

Supporters of Common Core say the standards are designed to reduce rote memorization and cultivate critical thinking in students. The standards do not dictate curriculum, allowing states to decide what to teach. Participating states have been rolling out the standards at different paces, but all are expected to have them in time for the new exams in the 2014-2015 school year.

 

Other states have opted to administer their old tests to most students this year while a small portion of their students field test the Common Core exams, the results of which will not be used to evaluate the performance of schools or teachers.

 

David DeSchryver, an attorney who has represented California in past skirmishes with regulators at the U.S. Department of Education, said the regulatory process is so lengthy that by the time the Obama administration takes action against the state, the new tests will likely be in place.

 

Still, he said the department is compelled to act because it is trying to hold the line on accountability while much of the country makes a significant shift in the way schools measure progress.

 

“They’re at this transition and the Department of Education recognizes it has to bridge it, but they don’t want to make a clean break because it would create this chasm in accountability,” DeSchryver said. “They’ve got themselves in a bit of a sticky situation.”